Bones are for life!

Learning Objective I know that I can protect my bones by eating a balanced diet, and doing weight-bearing exercise.

Why do we need our bones? As a framework for our bodies. To protect vital organs such as the heart and lungs. If we didn’t have bones we might look like this!

Which animal is this? A rabbit!

Which animal is this? A cat!

Are our bones alive or dead? Alive! We have until we are about 25 years old to make our bones really strong.

If you don’t look after your bones they could look like this! Healthy Bone Osteoporotic bone

You need to eat a balanced diet to build strong bones.

What is a balanced diet?

Why is calcium important? Calcium is vital for strong bones and teeth.

Which foods are calcium rich? Dairy products such as milk, yoghurt and cheese. Green leafy vegetables such as curly kale. Bony fish such as sardines and pilchards. Dried fruit such as apricots and currants.

Why do we need Vitamin D? We need vitamin D to help our bodies to absorb calcium. The best source is sunlight. Vitamin D can also be obtained from a small number of foods in our diet.

Which foods are rich in Vitamin D? Oily fish such as sardines, mackerel and pilchards. Don’t forget to eat the bones in tinned fish! Egg yolk Margarine Breakfast cereals

Healthy Eating Tips Eat fruit and vegetables, at least 5 portions a day. Eat fish and remember to mash the bones into tinned fish such as sardines. Don’t skip breakfast, it kick starts the day!

Weight-bearing exercise builds strong bones.

Put bone in the bank, now! During childhood, when the skeleton is growing, we need to build bone strength. By ‘putting bone in the bank’ we will have strong bones for when we naturally start to lose bone strength when we are older.

Why should we exercise? Bone is living tissue which reacts to weight-bearing exercise by growing stronger. Weight-bearing exercise means any exercise where you are supporting the weight of your own body.

Are these weight-bearing?

Sport Team sports like football, netball and hockey are good for bone building. Tennis is another high impact but enjoyable sport that builds bone strength.

What do you do each day to build strong bones?

Vitamin D The sunshine vitamin. We get 90% of our vitamin D from the sun. We need vitamin D to help your body absorb calcium.

Eat a balanced diet. Do weight-bearing exercise regularly. Get your vitamin D Remember!

Log onto the bones4life web site and have some fun with us!